Ann Althouse said: Your defintion of the vortex is incorrect! The source of the term is the Isthmus. You can see it has to do with my effect on my antagonists.

Strictly speaking, is should have been "Althouse's Law defined, Althouse's Vortex described." The Isthmus link helps. I'll have to pour a glass of wine, think about this, pour another glass, ponder some more and eventually update the footnote accordingly. The hard part is determining if this is a task for a merlot or a cab. Hmmmmm

Ann Althouse said: As to the law -- I haven't seen that expression used before, but I think the phrase "you, a law professor" should appear in the defintion.

Given Althouse's Law has a broad range of applicability, implicitly characterizing the relevant domain to law seems falsely limiting. I've seen Althouse's Law in play during corporate board meetings as well as software design sessions. Of course, no one knew Althouse's Law was an underlying factor. But they do now! I'll see to it the blue ribbon panel gets your suggestion. Who knows what those old buzzards with do with it? Good thing about definitions is they evolve.

You know, there was a point in the past when I felt sorry for Valenti. She got schooled and acted goofy about it (making everything about her breasts), and she was so dogged in sticking to the breast silliness that it seemed as though she'd decided that the only way to save face was to ride it out until everyone forgot about the whole thing. That behavior was embarassing but very human.

This conflict recycling for publicity though? It tries a person's supply of pity. I'm all out.

Why do people who profess distaste for this blog keep reading and posting?

If these people hated the opera, would they go to performances? And if they went and complained about it, what would we make of them then?

Over at the NYT, there's an article about civility and blogs. A subtext of both sets of rules is that bloggers are responsible for everything that appears on their own pages, including comments left by visitors. They say that bloggers should also have the right to delete such comments if they find them profane or abusive.

Not sure if I like this. Bloggers being responsible for the comments left on their blogs -- I'm not exactly sure what that means. Would a blogger have to fact-check the comments? Would there be an implied endorsement for any comments that were left up?

At any rate, it would seem that bloggers would have more than the right to delete profane or abusive comments. It would become a requirement. And a burden.

Thanks for noting my summary. I attempted to channel your thought process in such a way that the points could be addressed individually. Hope I didn't misstate your position.

Jessica's best defense to this whole brouhaha would be that she either doesn't have many clothes, or that she is the kind of person who doesn't pay much attention to clothes. I would find that credible.

Yah, he used to annoy me, but now its just entertaining. Same cut-n-paste attack every few days, living up to all my expectations of the sophisticated enlightened tolerant Left. Possible parody from a right-wing troll? I can no longer tell the difference.

Jessica's best defense to this whole brouhaha would be that she either doesn't have many clothes, or that she is the kind of person who doesn't pay much attention to clothes. I would find that credible.

I still don't understand why she didn't simply write it off as an unfortunate photograph: Yes, my photo op has me looking like a monica-wanna-be. I blame Murphy. Instead, she got all petulant about it and pivoted into attack mode. Bad move.